American Federalism: A Blessing and a Curse for Transgender Rights.

This article examines the development and current state of transgender rights policymaking in the United States, emphasizing how federalism and partisanship have produced a highly inconsistent patchwork of state laws. National policymaking on transgender rights has been largely stalled due to congressional gridlock, shifting executive branch policies, and narrow federal court rulings, notably the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision, which advanced employment protections but left other areas open to challenge. As a result, states have become the primary arenas for transgender rights policy, with Democratic-controlled states generally enacting inclusive protections and Republican-controlled states often passing restrictive laws, influenced by factors such as public opinion, party control, Evangelical Christian adherence, and advocacy group resources. The article’s analysis finds that government partisanship is the strongest predictor of state transgender policy divergence, reflecting an increasingly polarized political environment where transgender rights have become a salient and contested cultural issue. This fragmentation under federalism creates significant disparities in transgender people’s rights and protections depending on their state of residence.